The Cyan Legionnaires
by SeraphLeviathan
Summary: After serving in Operation Bulldog, Kathleen comes back to Summer with a few of her friends and joins the local Militia.


The Cyan Legionnaires  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Prologue  
  
  
  
Smoke Jaguar Headquarters Area, Yamarovka  
  
Smoke Jaguar Occupation Zone  
  
June 27, 3059  
  
Sheet after wind driven sheet of rain splashed onto the canopy of Lieutenant Kathleen Gutierrez's Centurion, making navigation by regular Line-of-sight difficult, while fighting in it close to impossible. Never the less, the audacity of the young lieutenant sent her into the fray of the highland terrain, now covered in mud and uprooted trees, not to mention the potholes and parts made by the roaming BattleMechs: ten-meter tall upright machines had the firepower to level an entire city-block, and sometimes more, using autocannons, missiles, lasers, and PPCs.  
  
For nearly an hour she and her lance had been wandering around, unable to get out long-range messages or satellite telemetry because of the intense cloud cover. Twice this evening, they had engaged the Smoke Jaguars, first a lone Dasher, then a pair of Svantovit hover APCs. Luckily for the lance, they weren't occupied by the dreaded elementals, the small and deadly battle armor produced by the Clans.  
  
While contemplating, a warning siren blared in her cockpit as two enemy 'Mechs entered in Kathleen's sensor range. She hit the comm. switch to open a channel to her lance, "Striker Lance, this is Striker One, I have two boogies. Tactical computer marks them as Koshi and Hankyu. Looks like we have some more Jaguars to smash" She closed the link and pushed her Centurion to full speed. The 50-ton 'Mech went from it's cruising speed to its maximum speed of 64 KPH in under three seconds, putting her 'Mech and the closet Smoke Jaguar BattleMech, the Koshi, 50 meters closer.  
  
She brought her targeting reticule over the Koshi and waited patiently, counting off the meters and seconds it would take before she would be able to fire off her LRMs. Five seconds passed, then the reticule turned a bright gold. Kathleen pushed down the trigger on his joystick. Ten Long- Range Missiles launched out of the 'Mechs chest, arcing towards the 25-ton Koshi. A few seconds later, the missiles slammed into the left torso and arm, knocking armor off BattleMech. The pilot stopped his small machine, stunned by the blast, by the time he recovered, another wave of LRMs had hit home on the 'Mech.  
  
Now finally in range, Kathleen hammered the small Koshi with her Luxor-D Series Autocannon. The AC-10's muzzle flashed as it launched a medium-sized uranium depleted shell toward it. The slug hit the Koshi, tearing off the 'Mech's left arm, and denying it of its most powerful weapon, its LRM-10. Hitting another trigger, she set off her two Medium Lasers, which melted armor off the left torso and leg.  
  
The Jaguar pilot turned his 'Mech, and fired off his Streak SRM-4 hastily. Two missiles went high and wide, while the other two peppered the right arm of the Centurion. The two machine guns, also located in the Koshi's right arm, did no more damage to the Centurion than chip the paint. It was a futile attempt, and any sane MechWarrior would've ejected.  
  
She decided to end this battle quickly, firing her Autocannon and Medium lasers again. The Autocannon shot snapped the femur on the already weakened left leg, while the Medium Lasers turned the Streak SRM Launcher into slag. The Koshi leaned to its right, then teetered back to its left, than the all so powerful gravity pulled the 'Mech down. Waste heat spread quickly through her cockpit, but with a combination of the heavy rain and her heat sinks, the heat dissipated quickly, allowing her to return to normal breathing.  
  
Hitting a switch, Kathleen brought her infrared sensors online. A heat source, though cooling off, illustrated the outline of a destroyed Hankyu, with a larger picture of a Nightsky standing above the crushed 30-tonner. As she looked at the screen, she noticed that the arms were severed, mostly likely by the Nightsky's hatchet on its right arm.  
  
She trotted toward her three lancemates, now setting up defensive positions where they stood. When she finally arrived, she opened up the comm. channel again, "Well, we lets go have another look around, I'm betting the Jags are still trying to find a way in. Mercy, set your Raven's Guardian ECM and Sensors to full. We need to find any roaming Jaguars."  
  
The lance of 'Mechs began to move slowly north, till Mercy finally detected massive signatures, "Kat! I got nearly a Trinary's worth of Medium and Heavy OmniMechs heading this way! I'm checking my onboard maps and local telemetry to find out where the hell we are." There was a short pause, which to the lance of MechWarrior felt like hours, then static led Mercy's next message, "Unless the entire system of my Raven has gone nuts, it says we've wandering within two kilometers of the Smoke Jaguar Headquarters."  
  
Kathleen heard the hoarse whisper of Sergeant Michaels mutter a couple of curses, but paid no attention to them, "Well, looks like we have three options, run for our lives, shut down and either wait for them to pass by or ambush them, or lastly, perform ourselves a little raid against the Smoke Jaguars ammo depot."  
  
A deep, masculine voice came over the comm. system, "My people are for it."  
  
Kathleen nearly jumped out of her skin, but kept enough composure (but it was mostly years of military conditioning) as she swung her Centurion around to bring her reticule on the outline of a 60-ton Lancelot. She took two deep breathes, arranging her thoughts before replying, "Well, lets see, unless you want to be turned into scrap metal, I suggest you tell me your rank, callsign, and how many buddies you got with you?"  
  
There was a light laugh on the other side, as the man replied, "Sergeant Martell, callsign Viper 3. I got with me," he took a moment to recount his assembled warriors, "five 'Mechs, including my own, two J. Edgars, and luckily for us all a field repair truck. Most of us are in every single kind of condition."  
  
Mercy let out a soft laugh, "A repair truck? Where the hell did you find that thing?" she let herself laugh again, as the thought of having a repair truck anywhere near the front was mind-boggling.  
  
A younger gentlemanly voice answered the question, "We were escorting the repair truck from a mobile field base to another base, when we got lost in this god-damned storm!" the humorous irony in his voice gave everybody a release of tension. Kathleen turned her Centurion to face the direction of the Smoke Jaguar Headquarters.  
  
"Lets do this. We'll probably not get another shot at this. I see you have a Thunderbird, combined with our Trebuchet, that will give us some decent fire support. The J. Edgars can annoy the hell out of the Clanners, and the rest of us can slug it out with them, more or less," She paused for a second, thinking about the repair truck, "Get that repair truck out here, we'll do a very quick reload of all 'Mechs, and field welding of the 'Mechs that need patches in their armor. We got nearly another week out here since this storm isn't going to pass for that long.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
PLEASE REVIEW!  
  
Disclaimer: I do not own any related to Battletech; Battletech is owned by Wizkids Co. All I own is the characters and this story. 


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